A day after it demolished a convention centre of popular actor Nagarjuna, the newly-created Hyderabad Disaster Response and Assets Monitoring and Protection Authority (HYDRA) said it has reclaimed 43 acres of land of lakes, ponds, and other water bodies encroached upon by politicians of various parties, VIPs, and real estate developers.
During the last one month, the body undertook demolitions at 18 places to reclaim the land in the Flood Tank Level (FTL) and buffer zone of the water bodies, as per a report it submitted a report to the government with details of the land reclaimed by taking up the demolitions. It also contains the details of the politicians and VIPs, who were the encroachers.
HYDRA said it reclaimed 4.9 acres of land of Thummidikunta Lake in Madhapur by demolishing the N-Convention Centre of Nagarjuna on Saturday.
The authority on August 18 reclaimed 15 acres of land of Gandipet Lake by demolishing structures belonging to Congress leader and former Union Minister M.M. Pallam Raju’s brother Pallam Anand (ORO sports), Kaveri seeds owner and former Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD) Minister G.V. Bhasker Rao, BJP leader Sunil Reddy, who contested as MLA candidate from Manthani constituency, and Anupama, wife of Srinivas (Pro kabaddi owner).
HYDRA on August reclaimed 12 acres of heritage lake Bum-Rukn-Ud-Dowla in Rajendranagar by demolishing illegal structures belonging to AIMIM MLA Mohammed Mubeen and MLC Mirza Rahmat Baig. The demolished structures included 40 compound walls, two ground-plus-5-floor buildings, one building with ground-plus-2 floors, and one more building.
Mubeen, the MLA from Bahadurpura, owned the ground-plus-5-floor building while Rahmat Baig owned the ground-plus-2-floor building.
HYDRA also razed encroachments on 3.5 acres of Chintal Lake. Ratnakaram Sai Raju, a local leader of BRS, had encroached on the lake by erecting temporary sheds.
Encroachments on a park in Nandagiri Hills in posh Jubilee Hills were also removed. A case was registered against MLA Danam Nagender when he came to resist demolitions in Nandagiri Hills.
Nagender, the MLA from Khairatabad constituency in the city, had quit the BRS to join the ruling Congress in March. A former minister, he also contested unsuccessfully for Lok Sabha from Secunderabad in the recent elections.
According to the report, HYDRA also cleared encroachment on a park in Lotus Pond. It said Gokul Narne had encroached 0.16 acre. The Authority also removed encroachments of parks, roads, nalas (drains), and lakes in MP MLA colony, Mithila Nagar, BJR Nagar in Banjara Hills in the heart of the city, and outskirts like Hayathnagar and Gajularamaram.
The Congress government recently constituted HYDRA for Telangana Core Urban Region (TCUR) for the purpose of disaster management, asset protection and other functions. This body has also been tasked with the protection of assets government assets like parks, layout open spaces, playgrounds, lakes, and nalas.
Headed by IPS officer A. V. Ranganath, HYDRA has been demolishing illegal structures in and around the city for the last couple of weeks to reclaim the encroached land of water bodies.
Chief Minister Revanth Reddy on Sunday declared that the government will remove encroachments on lakes, ponds and other water bodies irrespective of the political affiliations of the encroachers. Recently, the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) revealed that the extent of lakes in Hyderabad reduced by 61 per cent between 1979 and 2024.